Birth, marriage and death certificates, history books with maps, census records, naturalization forms, yellowed newspaper clippings, old family photographs, probate files, obituaries…to a genealogist it's all about the relatives.

What a wonderful bit of sleuthing. (Love all the pictures, too–I’m a cemetery fan as well.) I’ll take a piece of this in my quest for my rather different search. My Harrison grandfather and his three brothers all married women named Johnson. I remember stories that two were sisters. I’m trying to track which two it could have been. So far I can’t find any census prior to the marriage of any, except my grandmother, who I know couldn’t have been related to the other three. ‘Tis a puzzle. Since three were married in MN, maybe MOMS can help. I know the birth years of all of them. If I can find a census with two of them together as children, I think that will be pretty good evidence that the stories were true. What do you think?

I’m glad you enjoyed the post! Three Harrison and Johnson combinations, oh my! Yes, MOMS [https://www.moms.mn.gov/] could certainly help. I’ve found it works best when I provide more (rather than less) information. And because the surnames you mentioned are so common in Minnesota, more details will come in very handy.

Remember too that Minnesota took a number of state censuses which help narrow that 10 year gap between US censuses.